Sten
Sten is the name for a family of submachine guns designed by the British and used in World War II. They are known for having a simple design and a low production cost. The name Sten is an acronym, based on the names of the designers of the gun: S for Shepherd (Major Reginald V. Shepherd), T for Turpin (Harold Turpin), and EN for Enfield (the manufacturer of the gun). Sten guns were created out of necessity, because England was faced with invasion by the German Army, and they had a very small amount of suplies. The Thompson submachine guns suplied by America were not enough, especially after America entered the war and needed most of them for their own troops. Thus Enfield was given the task to create a new submachine gun for England. The Sten was designed to be cheap and easy to build, and the manufacturing required for it's creation was minimal. The production could be mainly preformed at small workshops with whatever metal the shops happened to have at the time. The Sten was a blowback-operated submachine gun firing from an open bolt with a fixed firing pin on the face of the bolt. This means the bolt remains to the rear when the weapon is cocked, and on pulling the trigger the bolt flies forward under spring pressure, stripping the round from the magazine, chambering it and firing the weapon all in the same movement. There is no breech locking mechanism, the rearward movement of the bolt caused by the recoil impulse is arrested only by the mainspring and the bolt's inertia. The appearence of the gun is basically just a pipe with a metal loop for a stock, and it did not even have a pistol grip like many submachine guns did (and many still do). Also, the horizontal magazine was a notable part of the gun. Another feature of the gun was the fact that it fired the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge, the standard German pistol and submachine gun bullet of the time. This was so that Brittish soldiers could use German ammunition that they came across, making it cheaper to use. After all, it cost you nothing to use bullets made by your enemy!!! However, this caused problems, as the magazine used the same arangement style as the MP-40: two columns of 9 mm cartridges in a staggered arrangement, merging at the top to form a single column. This made it easy for any dirt that got caught in the taper area to cause feed malfunctions. The gun was disliked by many people, who gave it the nicknames "Plumber's Nightmare", "Plumber's Abortion", or "Stench Gun". However, the advantage of the Sten was the ability to be easily mass-produced, even when there was a shortage during the war. The Sten was put into service in 1941 and removed during the 1960's. In 1953 it was officially replaced with the Sterling submachine gun, but it wasn't until sometime in the 1960's that it was no longer in service. Category:SMG Category:Stub